This invention relates to a driving device having tactility including air-bag type elastic extensible and contractible bodies producing contractive force in axial directions caused by expanded diameters by introducing pressurized fluid into the elastic bodies.
As robot instruments have been introduced into industrial fields and robot systems have been hard investigated, various kinds of devices adaptable to external changes, in other words having faculties such as senses of touch, sight and the like have been studied and developed.
With such devices, in usual tactile sensors, for example, on-off switches, strain gages or the like are provided at grasping portions or load-cells are provided between grasping portions and arms, so that when objects are grasped, grasping conditions thereof are perceived on the basis of electric signals caused in such tactile sensors.
In such devices, therefore, separate tactile sensors are needed and such sensors are required to be located in relatively narrow limited zones at the grasping portions, so that the mounting of the sensors are difficult and quite bothersome in manufacturing the devices.
With the devices using the load-cells, moreover, as the load-cells, themselves are heavy and bulky, the devices, themselves are unavoidably large-sized.
In the above hitherto used devices, furthermore, only the portions equipped with the tactile sensors have tactile faculties, so that tactile performances are not sufficiently exhibited as entire devices.